


Not Typical

by SmeagolMyNeagol



Category: Original Work
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-08
Updated: 2019-01-08
Packaged: 2019-10-06 10:32:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17343689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SmeagolMyNeagol/pseuds/SmeagolMyNeagol
Summary: Raven, a college junior, comes face to face with the social inadequacy of his friend, Kid. He finds it strangely endearing. Kid, meanwhile, faces a panicked downward spiral as his thoughts and manic behavior get out of hand. He takes solace in his friend.





	Not Typical

“Hey Kid, what’s up.” Raven said to Kid, barely lifting his head in acknowledgement, too emotionally destitute over his most recent dilemma.

“Hello Raven. Why the long face?” Kid responded, posture and mannerisms always at one hundred percent intensity, his disjointed way of speaking making even the most mundane things he said sound humorous, albeit unintentionally.

“I waited too long to ask for my transcripts to be mailed to the place I’m transferring to,” Raven replied, brows upturned and drawn together in worry, “and now I don’t know if they’ll get there in time for me to schedule for next semester.”

“WHAT?! This is your future at stake here! THIS. IS. INTEGRAL. TO. YOUR. LIVELIHOOD.” Kid responded, always one for screaming out--with much panic--his exact thoughts.

“Okay, calm down, Kid. I know. I asked student affairs and they said they’d do it as fast as they could,” Raven replied, mood already lifting due to the comforting, if not loud, presence of his friend.

“I can fix this. I can assure you, your papers will arrive at their destination on time, and your future will not be in the hands of the fates: those who would laugh at your misfortune!” Like a burst of energy, Kid was off, flying down the hallway and turning corners precariously, nearly knocking several people over.

“I don’t know why you feel the need to talk like that, but alright.” Raven trailed off, a small smile on his face, following his friend at a leisurely pace.

It was a blessing to have a friend like Kid, there was no doubt about it. Though Raven was sure Kid couldn’t speed up the processing and delivery of the US mail, he had to hand it to the guy, his attitude could really cure a mood.

 

 

“How long will it take for this man’s class transcripts to be mailed?!” Kid was still at one hundred percent intensity, with potency of volume and facial expressions only rising.

“Seven to ten business days.” Supplied the unamused receptionist.

“Allow me to rephrase. HOW MANY BUSINESS DAYS WILL IT TAKE TO SAVE THIS MAN’S LIFE? TO SECURE HIS FUTURE?!?” At this point, Kid was alarmingly disheveled, his eyes seemed to pop out of his head, sweat stained the underarms of his small blazer, and he was so leant over the receptionist’s desk that he was practically on top of it, his little frame hoisted up by his stubby hands.

“ _Seven_ to _ten_.” The receptionist replied more forcefully but somehow with the same amount of vigor: zero  

“Vvvvvvvvvvuh! Surely there is something that can be done!” Kid shouted, making that little buzzing sound he always does when he’s vexed. “Some corners that can be cut! Some form of time saving that can be managed, surely there is something you can do TO ENSURE THE CONTINUED PROSPERITY OF THIS GOOD MAN’S FUTURE—!”

“OKAY, Kid, calm down, yeah? They’re going to process it as fast as they can.” Raven stepped in, arms wrapped around the smaller boy’s torso, pulling him away from the now disgruntled receptionist.

“Please! I beg of you! DO ALL YOU CAN FOR HIM! I’M COUNTING ON YOU AND SO IS HE!”

With only some struggle, Raven gently pried a still-shrieking Kid off the desk, tugging him out of the room entirely, the armful still going off about Raven’s future and the school’s duty to the student body.

 

 

“Why do you gotta act like that, Kid?” They were laying in the grass on the hill behind St. Benny hall, staring up into the clouds, the lowness of the sun splashing them with a vibrant orange hue, savoring their last few days before the grind of finals in a few weeks.

At this, Kid’s inner dialogue—which was serene up to this point—went off into overdrive.

_What must he think of me? I messed up severely in there. It is likely that he won’t want to be around me now. Why did I do that? Why can’t I do anything right? I let that stupid part of me do all the thinking instead of controlling myself. What must he think of me?_

Kid looked to Raven, finding him still looking to the sky, face unperturbed. He searched the other boy’s face, trying to get a read, something he had always been inept at.

_Why can’t I ever understand people? What is he thinking?_

He was silent as his harmful thoughts sent him into a spiral, and after a few moments of this, Raven turned to him, asking again, “why are you like this, Kid?”

Kid broke eye contact, now incredibly uncomfortable. His blazer was becoming very hot, even in the breeze of the November afternoon.

_Why am I like this? What’s wrong with me?_

He felt his face heat up in humiliation and knowing that Raven was seeing his reddened face as the other boy stared intently down at him waiting for an answer, he blushed more.

He felt the eyes of his cohort burning his face with his stare, and he found he could take it no more. He imagined how he must look, eyes wide open, brows upturned in stupid distress, face redder than the poinsettias that decorated the student chapel. He probably looked so ridiculous right now. The idea of it was too much, and his skin began to itch.

He arose, breaths coming in panicky bouts now, standing up and pacing with no amount of gracefulness atop the grass on the hill, trying to keep his face turned away from his friend.

“Hey, it’s okay, Kid. I’m not, like, angry or whatever.” Raven knew the moment the question came out of his mouth that this would be the reaction. Kid was strange like that.

“I just want to know why you’ve been… more intense than usual.” Raven sat up, watching the frantic pacing of his friend.

“I mean… you’ve always been like that to some extent, granted, but there was an agitation to you in there that hasn’t always been there.”

Kid didn’t stop pacing. His mind filled with thunderous thoughts of self-doubt, barely registering what Raven was saying.

“Kid.”

“Kid.”

“Kid!”

Raven held him then, hands gripping roughly—but not painfully—Kid’s shoulders and the fabric of his blazer, noticing how drenched it was in sweat, how hot the skinny shoulders beneath it seemed to be.

“I’m telling the truth when I say that I only want to know why you’re acting like this, because I’m worried for you.”

Kid came back to himself, the urge to pace had ceased, his brain finally catching up with what was being said. When things were put in those plain terms, when no games of social innerworkings were being played, Kid could understand.

“Oh.” Was all Kid offered, his mouth not quite able to form the words he wanted to say yet. He stared up into Raven’s eyes, hoping to convey the words he could not yet speak.

“What’s up? You can tell me, promise.” The encouragement seemed to help.

After a few seconds of silence and unbroken eye contact, Kid spoke.

“You… will be gone,” the words felt like a defeat, like a secret confession uttered into the void; words that imprisoned him, or words he imprisoned inside.

“Next semester, you will go to school at HMU.” Kid knew this, he knew it was coming. The day he found out about his friend’s plans to transfer to take advantage of a specialized program for his major, Kid locked himself in his dorm.

He had been counting the days ever since.

At Raven’s look of confusion, Kid continued, “you will leave.”

The admission hurt like Kid an arrow through the chest. The idea of his friend leaving nearly broke him. He had been living at 90 MPH just to distract himself from that knowledge.

“I know you will do great things. You are the smartest person I know!” The words were spoken sincerely, Kid’s strange cadence and tone making them all the more endearing to Raven.

“I do not want anything to jeopardize your future,” the orange hue of the sky as illuminated by the setting sun served to bring out the color of Kid’s hair, and Raven was mesmerized by his little friend’s speech.

“Because you are of inexorable importance to me, because I care for you.”

“Kid…” Raven was almost speechless. He had never known his friend to make such types of admissions, always keeping his true innerworkings hidden, behaving instead in a manic and outlandish fashion, which Raven suspected was a defense mechanism.

Laid out so bare and vulnerable, Raven couldn’t resist swooping in and wrapping his arms around his friend, lifting him up so that Raven was standing at full height, resulting in Kid’s feet hanging above the ground.

The thought of his friend caring so much in his own way for little old Raven, so much so that he would actively seek to secure his future, even when it meant Kid would not be seeing Raven, even if it might mean the end of their friendship… it was… heartwarming, and… heartbreaking.

Raven knew he was one of Kid’s only friends. True, nearly the entire student body of Saint James de le Salle College enjoyed the little weirdo’s particular brand of expressive wild behavior, but as far as true friends, ones with which Kid was able to cultivate real emotional relationships, there were only a handful, and none of them were nearly as true as Raven. The same could be said concerning Raven’s feelings towards Kid.

“I’ll miss you, man. More than anything.” Raven could feel tears forming in his eyes, but he found he didn’t even care. He felt Kid slump against him, his orange head buried in Raven’s shoulder.


End file.
